Deconstructing What Happens in Law

April 03, 2012

UConn Law Dean Jeremy Paul: Was he victim of U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT rankings?

We will never know the answer to this 1. But it sounds solid to consider the possibility that University of Connecticut Law Dean Jeremy Paul is resigning because of the school's drop in rankings.

As THE CONNECTICUT LAW TRIBUNE reports, since 2008, the law school's rankings in U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT have gone down 16 points. The school is now ranked 62. That's a long way from the T-14, which makes it more difficult for its graduates to get jobs.

Paul will stay on through the 2012 - 2013 academic year as dean as the search for his replacement goes on. After that he will continue his career at UConn as a professor.

Here in Connecticut the job market for newbie lawyers has been bad even before the Crash of 2007. Lawyers I spoke to, even if they had experience from part-time legal jobs during their schooling, still had to beat the bushes for about a year. If they did land something, it tended to be low paying. A few of them gave up the dream of practicing law and took positions associated with compliance in the insurance industry which dominates Hartford.

Comments

As a 2003 grad of UConn Law, I can state with confidence, the law school is a complete waste of money. I had a B average but was on law review, moot court, etc. But career services would merely direct me to a computer database and on campus interviews were scarce. The faculty were atrocious at teaching and failed to publish anything of importance. The student body was a patchwork of not very bright students. Not sure what that says about me, since some of them obviously edged me out in the GPA arena. Anyway, UConn is should be a last resort and that only if they're giving you a full ride. Otherwise, you'll end up in some god-awful public defender job, ambulance chasing bottom feeders, clerking for a traffic court judge, or just sucking at life in general.